Thursday, August 18, 2011

Navel Gazing in the Extreme

I saw myself in a book one day when I was 36. Drugs and alcohol had driven me into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, and there, in what we call the Big Book, the text of AA, on page 62, I read this:

“Selfishness—self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate.”

It was an aha moment for me. I recognized myself, my essential problem with life. My role as a victim ended that day. Not long ago, I read a comment on a blog and it sparked a poem about what my life could have become had I never set foot in AA.

How to Be Invisible

Her vaguely alarming
binocular soul-searching
was tedious to her friends
of whom there were few
and fewer still as the years
trudged onward
and her lenses fixed
ever more inward.
By the time she shuffled
off this mortal coil
she was minute, a mote
of dust on a microscopic
lens, and her soul
had vanished.

This is a Friday Flash 55. Go visit the G-Man for more tales in 55 words.

I appreciate the honesty of people in recovery - we are all (hopefully) in some form of recovery. You are so right -We will either become inward focused or outward focused - the focus makes all the differencethanks for the 55

Albert Einstein Quotes

About Me

I'm a poet, gardener, and freelance writer who lives in California by the coast, in a small town surrounded by pastures, woods, and vineyards. Other things I am: recovering LA magazine editor and recovering alcoholic, wife of a tolerant man, mom to two beautiful daughters, mistress of beagles and cats, lover of mysteries and photography, a survivor of suicide, depression, addiction, and sundry minor ailments. I write for a living and write poetry for life.

Who Are You?

Here's a free psychology-based personality test, thorough and intriguing, developed by some creative academic types. The test is anonymous and it doesn't result in spam flooding your inbox. Nobody's paying me to tell you about it. They don't even know I'm telling you about it. In fact, this message will self-destruct in 10 seconds.

Without Fail

“Things turn out best for the people who make the best out of the way things turn out.” (Art Linkletter)

No Comment

We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems. (John W. Gardner)

Survival Tip #19

My strength lies solely in my tenacity. (Louis Pasteur)

I'm a recovering Lutheran

"This life therefore is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness, not health, but healing, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it, the process is not yet finished, but it is going on, this is not the end, but it is the road." (Martin Luther)

A Philosophy of Life

“It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.” Samuel Johnson

Go Figga

Visitors are beautiful people.

My AA Recovery Story

I got sober in 1990 after a life of drug and alcohol addiction, and I had 15 wonderful years. Then I moved and left my homegroup behind. I didn't replace my sponsor, who had died. I didn't work with newcomers, and I went to only one meeting a week. Ultimately, I didn't stay sober. I experienced that strange mental twist, and I picked up. But I jumped back into the program, and my life has continually gotten better. I'm married to a man with 23 years of sobriety, and we work our program at home. AA is the hub the wheel of my life revolves around. I've been able to explore a creative side of my personality that once lived only under the influence of drugs. I have perfect moments during each of my precious days. We are none of us invulnerable to that strange mental twist that precedes the first drink, and all that stands between us and the drink is our constant thought of others. My prayer these days is: God, do your will in and through me today. If I can be an inspiration to others, then my life is rich. God bless you all.

Rosebud on Ice

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome. (Anne Bradstreet)